Thank you for the question.
We see it as an impediment for people from our community, the Indo-Carribean community, which is part of the South Asian diaspora. However, we also see Bengali Canadians and Indian Canadians experiencing those same obstacles.
The challenge is this: People are trying to balance their participation in these religious obligations. Diwali is a very significant holiday for the Hindu, Jain and Sikh communities. They are balancing those obligations with that most important right—the ability to participate in the democratic process. We've seen this occur. As my colleague Ayesha noted in her remarks, we saw this with the municipal elections in Ontario in 2022. People were experiencing that challenge in real time.
To your question, though, we have, as a community organization, put a lot of effort into “get out the vote" efforts, driving people toward advance polls. However, based on our engagement with our stakeholders and community members, that conflict was evident and felt.